Friday, August 26, 2016

...Ever since the Oslo Accords, successive Israeli governments have felt obliged to understate and even dismiss Palestinian terror and hatred in order to maintain domestic public support for policies that, alas with the benefit of hindsight, were doomed to fail. At the very early stages, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat told his people that the ultimate goal was the end of Jewish sovereignty – and we dismissed such outbursts as empty words merely designed to placate his radical domestic opponents.

But as the government falsely praised our peace partner, many Israelis deluded themselves into believing that the terrorism we faced was an extremist aberration and that the Palestinians were committed to ending the conflict on the basis of a two-state solution. Likewise, most of the world accepted at face value our repeated praise of Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, as moderates and genuine peace partners.

This suited the long-term Palestinian policy of destroying us in stages. They readily accepted concessions and withdrawals but without compromising one iota, and they continue to demonize us and challenge our legitimacy.

But the worst aspect was our failure to highlight the poisonous brainwashing the Palestinian Authority had inflicted on its population. While Arab hostility to Jews prevailed even during the Mandatory period, it was not comparable to the culture of death and evil that today saturates every aspect of Palestinian life.

The Palestinians have stated explicitly that their state would be Judenrein and that Jews would never be permitted to live in their ancestral home even if they were willing to accept Palestinian jurisdiction. Indeed, Palestinians were brutally executed when they were deemed to have sold land to a Jew.

The Palestinian Authority has become a criminal society and can be compared to prewar Germany when the Nazis transformed their population into genocidal barbarians by depicting Jews as subhuman. The Palestinians depict Jews as “the offspring of apes and pigs” and call for their extermination. This is not even done subtly but with blatant statements to this effect emanating daily from religious and political leaders and accessible from vast documentary sources compiled by Palestinian Media Watch, MEMRI and others.

A society in which children from kindergarten are brainwashed into believing that the highest goal in Islam is to achieve martyrdom in the course of killing Jews can only be described as criminal.

The demonization of Israel and manifestations of the culture of death are promoted without inhibition by the leadership, the mullahs in the mosques and the state-controlled media. They amount to direct incitement for individuals to strike out and kill Jews in concert or randomly. The “heroic” scenes of youngsters stabbing Jews, the praise by Abbas himself of martyrs “with holy blood” and the totally contrived religious frenzy accusing Israelis of planning to destroy Al-Aqsa mosque, coalesce into a witch’s brew of primeval rage and hatred.

The PA provides generous state salaries to terrorists apprehended by Israelis, and if they are killed, their families are remunerated — from funds provided by Western countries. Religious and political leadership at all levels sanctifies terrorists as heroes and national martyrs. City squares, schools and even football clubs are named in their honor.

The barbarism imbibed by the Palestinians is reflected in the street celebrations that erupt spontaneously with every murder of an Israeli. Even more nauseating are the repeated displays on TV of mothers expressing pride that one of their children had become a martyr and usually expressing hope that her other children would follow the example.

Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that Palestinian opinion polls reflect public support for terror attacks against Israel and opposition to a two-state solution. The Arafat/Abbas indoctrination process has radicalized successive generations into believing that the only solution to the conflict is the permanent termination of Jewish sovereignty in the area.

There is irrefutable evidence of the barbaric and genocidal nature of Palestinian society. Indeed, the reality is that, despite maintaining a “moderate” stance to the outside world, internally the Palestinians and ISIS are birds of a feather — although the Palestinians are probably more corrupt.

Alongside the turbulence in the region and the threat from Iran and ISIS, could one envisage any country agreeing to accept statehood for what will inevitably be a neighboring criminal state pledged to its destruction or a candidate for an ISIS or Iranian takeover? This would be utterly inconceivable.

Yet most of the international community, including the United States, regards this as an issue of two nations arguing over real estate. Were that the case, the Palestinians would not have dismissed the offers by Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, who were willing to concede up to 97% of the territories formerly controlled by the Jordanians.

Israel has been the target of repeated defamation and delegitimization yet has basically only been on the defensive, seeking to refute the lies being disseminated. But as Joseph Goebbels said, if one repeats a lie continuously, people begin believing it. This dictum has now been realized; many in the Western world have absorbed the distorted Palestinian narrative of Israel being an apartheid state, an occupier and a nation born in sin.

Ironically, the weakness of our position lies in the fact that, until recently, in order to appease our allies and “protect” Israelis from being confronted with the stark reality, we deliberately held back from telling the truth and failed to highlight the barbaric and criminal nature of our purported peace partner.

Had we mounted campaigns at the outset, exposing the horrors perpetrated by our neighbors, it may not have influenced anti-Semites and the delusional Left but it would have made a significant impact on the open-minded.

But even now, belatedly exposing the barbarity of our neighbors should be made the top priority in our foreign relations efforts rather than the endless disputes over whether the miniscule 2% of territory comprising settlements (which are not being expanded) is justified.

The recent initiative by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to establish relations with independent Palestinians, aside from not having cabinet approval, is bound to fail because any Palestinian engaged in such negotiations would immediately be assassinated.

Pressure must be exerted to encourage rank-and-file Palestinians that their best interests will be served when they appoint leaders who genuinely support the peace process. Alas, for the time being, that is not even on the horizon.

Today, we must move forward and promote a focused effort with detailed documented exposure of the evil nature of Palestinian society, which will make it far more difficult and embarrassing for the Americans and Europeans to continue pressuring Israel to accept the creation of what will invariably be a criminal state — particularly in the context of the mayhem prevailing in the region and the terrorist threats now impacting the heartland of Europe.

<img class="wp-image-830738 size-large" style="border:2px solid #000000;" src="https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/gettyimages-470063558.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=635" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: Soros Fund Management Chairman George Soros attends a meeting with finance and development ministers, international partners and the presidents of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea about the ongoing efforts to recover from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa during the World Bank- International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings April 17, 2015 in Washington, DC. The World Bank announced Friday that it would provide an additional US$650 million over the next year to help Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to recover from the social, economic and health impact of the Ebola crisis. " width="635" height="423" title="Not Shocking: George Soros Funds Progressive War on Israel" />

George Soros. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The recent hack of George Soros’ “charitable” giving revealed nothing new. The man who told journalist Steve Kroft in a televised interview that roaming the streets of Budapest with his faux godfather to confiscate the property of his fellow Jews for the Nazis was the most exhilarating time of his life has long had a problem with both his Jewish roots and the creation of a Jewish state.
Most revealing in the interview was Soros’ comment that he felt no guilt about what he had done during the war years—not even survivor’s guilt, common among those who live through a catastrophe, troubled him.

So, the emergence of documentation showing how Soros funds those whose goal is to destroy the Jewish character of Israel—if not the Jewish state itself—is in keeping with the very essence of a man who as a child so identified with the aggressor that he relished the experience of working for the Nazis.

Ironically, when those who want to vilify Jews need a role model that conforms to their framing of a fictional and vile Jewish character, Soros figures prominently. Yet, Soros’ pattern of funding and political backing generally resembles that of the neo-Nazis and Islamists who so conveniently find something in Soros’ Jewishness to decry.

In reality Soros, with his progressive, anti-Zionist agenda, is actually one of them. He is as much a practicing Jew as the Iranian ayatollahs; and when it comes to foreign policy, finding daylight between him and them would require a microscope.

It is not surprising that Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine is hobnobbing with Alexander Soros, George’s son and intellectual heir apparent. Alexander Soros is a big fan of Tim Kaine.

And so he should be. Kaine is a prominent supporter of President Obama’s ill-conceived and daily-changing Iran deal with its secret memoranda that is not only an existential threat to Israel’s existence but is also changing the balance of power in the entire Middle East. This is all the more problematic as Turkey sinks into internal chaos as a result of the unsuccessful coup, which enhances Iran’s potential as a serious rival.

This is the very essence of Soros’ policies, which have shown greater opposition to a Jew building a bathroom in Jerusalem than the ayatollahs building a nuclear weapon in Iran.

Soros has repeatedly tried to hide his support for the anti-Zionist Jewish progressive. Consequently, J Street for years denied Soros’ support, which was hidden through a Hong Kong-based cutout.Both Soros’ foundation and the New Israel Fund, another Soros beneficiary, fund Adalah, a group that trains Israeli-Arabs and Jewish progressives to wage lawfare against the Jewish state and is a strong advocate of BDS.

In my own experience sitting on a panel with a representative of the New Israel Fund at a synagogue in Oakland, California, the NIF panelist vehemently and with outrage denied the very suggestion that his organization funds Adalah. Yet, it does.Clearly, organizations like J Street and NIF share Soros’ anti-Zionist agenda. Otherwise, they would not receive funds from him. But their sharing of that agenda needs to be hidden from their fellow Jews, who might appropriately conclude that these are not organizations seeking to liberalize the Jewish state as much as they want to destroy it.The revelations from the hack of Soros’ foundation only add support to what we already know. Soros’ agenda is to destroy Israel as a Jewish state, and those who receive money from him share that agenda. Their attempts to distance themselves from Soros simply show that they cannot afford to have the Jewish community comprehend the actual nature of their intentions.

*Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a senior fellow with the Haym Salomon Center @salomoncenter.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

About a year ago, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas stopped his threats to resign, dismantle the PA, and hand the keys to Israel.He realized that the Israeli leadership is not impressed by his threats; that the Palestinian public does not hold him in high regard after more than 10 years of rule without any achievements; that his popularity has declined; and that no one in the territories pays heed to his empty admonitions.

Mahmoud Abbas posters during the 2012 local elections. Featured alongside of him are photos of Yasir Arafat, Marwan Barghouti, and Abu Jihad.

(AFP Photo / Musa al-Shaer)

Now, suddenly, he has changed his tune. Instead of threatening to dissolve it, he now touts the PA as an important “national accomplishment” that must be preserved at all costs without allowing Israel to destroy it.

What Is Abbas Seeking?

Near the end of his tenure, the main consideration guiding 81-year-old Abbas is to remain in power while seeking an appropriate successor, one who will allow him to retire honorably and will ensure the well-being of his family and his two sons’ economic interests.

Abbas is not looking for diplomatic adventures. He is sticking with his strategy of internationalizing the conflict and, hence, he supports the French initiative. That initiative could lead to an international conference by the end of the year while entailing a minimum of risk to Abbas’ rule.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s new plan, which has been dubbed “the carrot and stick,” gravely concerns Abbas. Particularly worrisome to him is the idea of [Israel] opening a dialogue with Palestinian academics and business people. Abbas sees this as going over his head to find a new Palestinian address, thereby undermining his legitimacy as leader of the Palestinian people.

Hence, the PA has hastily put pressure on the Private Sector Coordination Council, which has issued a statement that “the PLO is the sole and exclusive representative of the Palestinian people.”

As Abbas sees it, Liberman’s new plan poses a threat to his continued rule. It is not every day that an Israeli defense minister, with the prime minister’s approval, announces a plan that determines, in effect, that Abbas is not the exclusive representative of the Palestinian people and that he, too, can be replaced.

The PA chairman is proceeding with great caution. Although it has been several days since Liberman broached his new plan, Abbas still has not responded to it personally and is keeping mum.

The defense minister’s new plan has upped the pressure on Abbas. According to senior Fatah officials, from now on he will take great care not to give the Israeli defense establishment pretexts to take measures to undermine senior PA senior officials as well as Abbas himself, such as invalidating their official VIP travel documents, lifting the easier conditions at the border crossings, and so on.
The PA chairman will now bear down more than ever on security coordination with Israel to prevent, through his security mechanisms, any resurgence of the “knife intifada,” which is abating.

The defense minister’s new plan has, indeed, become a means to pressure the PA chairman.
The carrot-and-stick policy in the territories is not new; it was begun after 1967 by then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. From that time to the present, several Israeli defense ministers have employed it. This policy has an internal logic of not punishing those not involved in incitement and terror while encouraging the moderates.

Liberman’s announcement of his new plan at this present juncture – concurrent with the local elections campaign in the territories and with the arrest by the Shabak (Israel Security Agency) of Hussein Abu Kweik, Hamas’ representative on the Committee to Coordinate the West Bank Elections – creates the impression that Israel is planning to intervene in these elections as part of the plan. This has led senior PA officials to claim that Israel wants to reestablish the Village Leagues – which, in their day of the late 1970s, dealt with municipal matters and routine services – and to treat the West Bank Palestinians as “residents” and not as a people with rights.

(Koret Communications)

Abbas fears that the Israeli defense establishment will exploit the sharp dissension in Fatah to expand its ties with the heads of the independent lists and with heads of large West Bank clans who will run in the elections, thereby helping these figures create a route that bypasses the PA.

Israel is in full control of Area C of the West Bank, which constitutes about 60 percent of the total land. This enables Israel to exert major influence in all areas of life. The municipalities and local councils require Israel’s approval for their measures, which, in itself, gives Israel powerful leverage over the Palestinian population in general and the heads of the municipalities in particular.

Will Elections Erode the PA’s Status?

From Abbas’ perspective, the intensification of Israeli influence over the West Bank municipalities and local councils stands to help Israel erode the PA’s status and legitimacy among the West Bank Palestinian population, and thus undermine what he calls a major “national accomplishment.”
Israel, meanwhile, is allowing the preparations for the elections to go forward despite the fact that, according to the Oslo agreements, Israel could put a stop to them because of the participation of Hamas, which is defined as a terror organization.

That Israel refrains from aborting the elections is seen by the PA as a move aimed at weakening it and even further aggravating the strife between Fatah and Hamas.

Israel has not rescinded its recognition of the PLO, which is mandated by the Oslo agreements. It continues to work with the PLO in accordance with signed agreements, including the economic agreement known as the Paris Protocol. Nevertheless, the defense minister’s new plan is a sword of Damocles over Abbas’ head and over whoever will eventually replace him. In other words, notwithstanding the agreements between the two sides, Israel will not sacrifice its security interests, and any Palestinian leader can be replaced.

The political platform recently published by the Movement for Black Lives ["Black Lives Matter" in the USA] repeats the demonizing rhetoric of the infamous antisemitic NGO Forum of the 2001 Durban Conference, which launched the BDS movement. The platform labels Israel as an “apartheid state”, accuses the country of committing “genocide” against Palestinians, calls for an end to military aid, and endorses the anti-Israel BDS movement, including opposition to the “expanding number of Anti-BDS bills being passed in states around the country.” In response, a number of mainstream Jewish organizations issued condemnations, including the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center. In the initial text, the Black Lives platform listed Nadia Ben-Youssef, who represents the Israel-based Adalah organization [a flagship grantee of the New Israel Fun (NIF)] in the US, as an “author and contributor.” The BLM platform also included a reference to Israeli laws that allegedly “sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people,” based on the tendentious “database of discriminatory laws” published by Adalah. This publication refers to Zionism in a pejorative manner, and makes no distinction between laws that were actually passed by the Israeli Knesset and legislative proposals that went nowhere. Furthermore, laws promoting Zionism and the historic Jewish connection to Israel are labeled as discriminatory, including the use of Jewish symbols and the Hebrew calendar.

In the initial text, the Black Lives platform listed Nadia Ben-Youssef, who represents the Israel-based Adalah organization in the US, as an “author and contributor.” The BLM platform also included a reference to Israeli laws that allegedly “sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people,” based on the tendentious “database of discriminatory laws” published by Adalah. This publication refers to Zionism in a pejorative manner, and makes no distinction between laws that were actually passed by the Israeli Knesset and legislative proposals that went nowhere. Furthermore, laws promoting Zionism and the historic Jewish connection to Israel are labeled as discriminatory, including the use of Jewish symbols and the Hebrew calendar.

However, as criticism against the platform mounted, Ben-Youssef’s contribution as an author suddenly disappeared from the BLM text, without explanation, and instead Adalah is listed as an “organization currently working on policy.” In response, JTA altered its article to reflect the new description in BLM’s publication, but the news service did not indicate that it had sought to clarify the reasons for the change. Adalah did not issue a statement or clarification regarding its role in the sections of the BLM document that promotes BDS and the demonization of Israel.

With and without the Adalah credits. Screen shots by NGO Monitor. (Click to expand.)

At the same time, employees of the New Israel Fund (NIF) launched an aggressive social media campaign to demand the removal of Adalah’s name from other articles on the BLM platform and demonization of Israel. In many ways, Adalah is the flagship grantee of the NIF, receiving close to $2 million between 2008 and 2015. (The funds run by George Soros have provided a similar amount, and a number of European governments are also major grantees.) ...the NIF...advertises itself as a “liberal, progressive” pro-Israel organization, and whose guidelines clearly state that they “will not fund global BDS activities against Israel.” Proof that Adalah violates these guidelines would pose a serious problem for the NIF ...

This is not the first time that the NIF has used strong-arm tactics to revise and redact embarrassing references to Adalah and BDS.

In 2012, the program for a BDS “apartheid week” event scheduled for Geneva included Suhad Bishara, the director of Adalah’s Land and Planning Rights Unit. After NGO Monitor brought this to NIF’s attention, Bishara’s name and affiliation were removed from some of the advertising, and was replaced by a statement reading, “For security reasons, we do not mention [the speaker’s] name on the site.” In the end, it was unclear whether Bishara participated, and an explanation of how or why her name was initially listed and then removed was never given.

At the time, the NIF public relations staff attacked NGO Monitor for raising this issue, including publication of a libelous blog post in the Times of Israel (March 6, 2012) containing a number of false claims and unrelated political declarations. Yehudit Karp, an NIF board-member and former deputy attorney general, is listed as the author of the post, but in a series of meetings with me, she acknowledged that she did not know the details of the Adalah Geneva BDS issue, and had agreed to put her name on a text written by someone else. Rather than ensuring that grantees including Adalah stayed far away from BDS, the NIF opted to attack the messenger.

The insertion of Israel into the American racial conflict (“intersectionality” in the radical political jargon) is unwarranted, and the stakes are high: NGO promotion of BDS in this context can exacerbate tensions between the Black and Jewish communities.

And while the NIF knows how to raise its voice in criticizing Israel, it has chosen to avoid this issue rather than ...protest efforts to use BLM as a platform to demonize the Jewish state.

If Adalah was in no way involved with the Platform, despite the initial publication, NIF should clearly say so; and if the links are real, pressure to erase the traces from the public record are duplicitous.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

U.S. lawmakers want to cut off funds to United Nations-run schools where a new documentary shows kids as young as 13 declaring they want to kill Jews and join ISIS.

The documentary, “The UNRWA Road to Terror: Palestinian Classroom Incitement," shows children as young as 7 in schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) expressing support for terrorism. One clip shows a 13-year-old Palestinian student chanting “With Allah’s help I will fight for ISIS, the Islamic State.”

Members of Congress and sources with knowledge of pending legislation told FoxNews.com that lawmakers are looking to introduce bills cutting off funding from such schools before Congress adjourns this summer.

Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., said major reform is needed to UN schools.

“It is a crime against humanity, an outrage, and does not in any way prepare the Palestinian population or future generations of Palestinians for peace with Israelis... It is unacceptable that the international community, including the United States, is funding UNRWA without demanding change.”

According to State Department figures, the U.S. provided $390 million to help fund UNRWA in 2015.

...Israeli officials have pointed to links between Palestinian calls for violence and the murders.
The documentary shows incitement across several schools.

"We have to make war to prove we are stronger than the Jews," said a 7-year-old girl who is shown in the film saying the line in the classroom of a UN school in Jerusalem.

"Right now I am prepared to be a suicide bomber," says a 13-year-old shown in the film at another UN school.

Another student, who is identified in the film as a 10-year-old who goes to a UN school in Bethlehem, is shown saying, "We need to take steps to kill them, and they will retreat and we will advance.”

Documentary producer David Bedein told Fox News that he and his organization, Center for Near East Research have been researching UNRWA for nearly 30 years. He linked the content of the film to the potential Congressional push.

“The U.S. government sponsored the peace process, yet the same U.S. government undermines any hope of peace” by funding problematic UN schools, he said.
A leading Palestinian human rights expert told FoxNews.com that the film was accurate."The film accurately portrays UNRWA schools… advocacy of violence remains rampant dictated by teachers who run the U.S.-funded UNRWA schools," said Palestinian human rights activist and political analyst Bassam Eid.

...A State Department spokesman said the department had called on UNWRA to investigate the allegations made in the film...

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Muslim canards about Jerusalem and the al Aqsa Mosque revealed and proven to be lies by original sources.

A well known proverb says "liars need to have good memories." The reasoning is clear: a liar needs to remember his own lies and whom he told them to in order to avoid contradicting himself and revealing his mendacity. This rule applies to important issues as well. Jerusalem, for instance, whose holiness to Sunni Muslims is based on a late and political interpretation of a Koranic verse, while to Shiite Muslims it is only the third holiest city, ranked below Mecca and Medina (today the city of Najaf in southern Iraq).

Early Islamic sources state that the "al Aqsa Mosque" (literal meaning: 'the farther mosque'), mentioned only once in the Koran, was one of two mosques located near Ji'irrana, a village located between Mecca and Taaf in the Arabian Peninsula (now Saudi Arabia.) One of the mosques was called "al-Masjid al-Adna," meaning the "closer mosque" and the other " al-Masjid al-Aqsa", the "farther mosque."

When the Koran refers to the al Aqsa mosque while telling the myth of the Prophet Muhammad's night time journey from the "holy mosque" of Mecca to al Aqsa, that is, the "farther mosque," it is referring to the mosque in Ji'irrana.

In 682 C.E., fifty years after Mohammed's death, Abd allah Ibn al-Zubayr, the tough man of Mecca, rebelled against the Umayyads who ruled Damascus and would not allow them to fulfill the Haj in Mecca. Since the Haj pilgrimage is one of the five basic Islamic commandments, they were forced to choose Jerusalem as their alternative for a pilgrimage site. In order to justify choosing Jerusalem, the Umayyads rewrote the story told in the Koran, moving the al Aqsa mosque to Jerusalem, and adding, for good measure, the myth of the night time journey of Mohammed to al Aqsa. This is the reason the Sunnis now consider Jerusalem their third holiest city.

Shia Islam, mercilessly persecuted by the Umayya Caliphate, did not accept the holy Jerusalem canard, which is the reason the second holiest city to Shiites is Najif in Iraq, the burial place of Shiite founder Ali bin Abi Talib. Many of the Shiite elders – Iranian and Hezbollah – only began to call Jerusalem holy after the Khomeni rebellion in 1979 so as to keep the Sunnis from accusing them of being soft on Zionism.

The first lie, in that case, is the spurious claim that the "farther mosque" is in Jerusalem.

More lies were piled on to the first one, the main prevarication being the exact location of this so-called al Aqsa mosque, which until not very long ago, was the silver-domed building on the southern end of the Temple Mount.

The entire area of the Temple Mount is known as al-Haram al-Sharif – "the holy and noble site"- but a change came about after the Six Day War, when Jewish voices could be heard, particularly that of the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Rav She'er Yashuv HaCohen, calling for the establishment of a synagogue on the Mount. Immediately after the war, Chief IDF Rabbi Shlomo Goren also said that he wanted to celebrate religious events on the Temple Mount. It was felt that the Muslims would not object, since al Aqsa was on the southern edge of the compound and the synagogue would not be nearby.

As a result, however, the Muslims decided to announce that the al Aqsa mentioned in the Koran refers not only to the mosque on the southern end of the compound, but is the name for the entire Temple Mount area, abandoning the original name, al-Haram al-Sharif. My colleague, Professor Yitzchak Reiter, discusses this issue at length in his book "From Mecca to Jerusalem and Back," 2005. The renaming of the Temple Mount is clearly a canard, with two documents, one known and one less known, revealing the truth.

The source that is more widely known is a booklet prepared in 1924 by none other than the openly anti-Semitic (and later on good friend of Hitler) Mufti Haj Amin el Husayni and reprinted many times in the years following its first publication. Dr. Daniel Tassel of Lexington, Massachusetts, gave me an original copy printed in 1930, for which generosity I am most grateful. The booklet's title is "A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif – Jerusalem." Note that the area is not called al Aqsa. The al Aqsa Mosque appears as a chapter in the booklet, after the chapter on the Dome of the Rock, the golden-domed structure in the middle of the compound. It is clear that to Haj Amin al- Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, the al Aqsa Mosque is simply the building on the southern end of the compound...

Booklet by Mufti of Jerusalem INN:MK

The lesser known of the two documents is one I photocopied recently at my friend Chaim Steinberger's home in New York. Chaim has a large collection of maps of the Land of Israel and he showed me an ordinary Jordanian tourist map of Jerusalem that was executed in 1965, two years before the 1967 Six Day War. At that time, East Jerusalem was still illegally occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, while the entire world kept silent and uttered not a word against this totally illegal occupation. The map was drawn by a Jordanian named Abd al-Rahman Rassas who worked as an official surveyor and was authorized by the Hashemite Tourism Authority of Jordan. The map bears the words: "recommended and approved by the official Jordanian Tourist Authority." (see photo at end of article)

A perusal of the map shows that in 1965 the Temple Mount compound was still called " al-Haram al-Sharif", that it was on "Mount Moriah", and that the "al Aqsa Mosque" was simply a building on the southern end of al-Haram al-Sharif. In other words, thirty years before the peace agreement between Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan, the Jordanians identified al Aqsa as no more than an edifice on the southern end of al-Haram al-Sharif, which in turn is built on Mount Moriah.

Islam's liars decided to "expand" al Aqsa – whose real location is actually in the Arabian desert – to encompass the entire Temple Mount area only after the Jews liberated the site of their Temples in the June 1967 Six Day War. After all, the Jews might want to build a synagogue on the Temple Mount under the direction of Rabbis Goren and She'er Yashuv Hacohen.

For example, Sheikh Ikrima Sabr, Mufti of Jerusalem 1994-2006, in a speech given on Friday, January 4th, 2002, said the following (my additions in parentheses, M.K.):

"O ye Muslims (all over the world), when we talk about the blessed al Aqsa Mosque, we mean a mosque whose area is 144 dunam (the size of al-Haram al-Sharif in its entirety) including the walls, the al-Buraq Wall (the Western Wall), the passages, hallways, entrances and squares, in addition to the part that is roofed (the building in the southern end),the part that is ancient (under the roofed part) and the Foundation Stone (under the Dome of the Rock), the Marwani prayer site (Solomon's Stables), all are al Aqsa…."

Another lie, revealed as such by the very same map, follows on the heels of this one. It concerns the site of the Jewish Holy Temples. I have listened to a good many Friday sermons in Arabic, which I unfortunately did not record, including some in which the preacher claimed that al-Haykal al-Maz'oum –" the supposed (Jewish) Temple"- was never in Jerusalem. One preacher claimed it was on Mount Sinai and in another instance, the preacher said it was on Mount Gerizim near Nablus, where "the Samaritans preserve the authentic Jewish traditions." The Jordanian map puts paid to the lies of every one of these Islamic orators.

One wonders why the al Aqsa Mosque is of such importance to the Muslims and why they have accorded it such prominence that it is becoming accepted as one of the basic principles of their faith. The answer lies in the fact that Islam defines itself as a religion that did not enter the world to live in peace with Judaism and Christianity, the religions that preceded it, but as a universal religion that is meant to obliterate them and take over the world. Islam sees itself as "Din al-Haqq," the true religion, and Judaism and Christianity as "Din al-Batil," the false religions. The Muslims fear that the Jewish people's return to their land, cities and the site of their Temples will grant Judaism the status of a vibrant, active and true religion, posing a theological threat to the very existence and raison d'etre of Islam.

That is the reason that all Jewish activity on the Temple Mount, especially Jewish prayer, infuriates them, and they will do everything, including spreading prevarications and outright lies, to prevent the Jews from returning to the places from which they were exiled almost 2000 years ago. That is what makes the conflict over Jerusalem the basis of a theological struggle whose source is the Muslim world's inability to recognize the history and religious rights of non-Muslim believers, all of whom are slated to disappear, according to Islam.

All the other aspects of the conflict, nationalistic, political or legal, are layers of camouflage hiding the real dispute, the theological one, between Israel and its neighbors.

Today, now that we have been blessed with the beginnings of a return to Zion, we bring to mind the destruction of the Temples and our people's dispersion among the nations of the world. We can see with our own eyes that the return of the Jewish people to their land, to its capital city and the site of the Holy Temples, is anathema to many and especially to our Muslim neighbors. The question that arises is whether we still have to live with the Muslim falsehoods concerning the Temple Mount –after we succeeded in liberating our land and capital city from Islamic occupation – or whether we should inform them of what they know full well, but attempt to repress: that it is our forefathers who were here 3000 years ago and worshipped the one God, while their forefathers were pagan tribes in the Saudi desert, who drank wine, buried their daughters alive and worshipped idols.

When we respect ourselves and our heritage enough to stand up for our rights, they will respect us and leave us in peace.

Sure, Tu B’Av is a time for romance. But in today’s divisive climate, the holiday also provides us with an opportunity to feel hopeful, and to sing together.

Tu B’Av, or Jewish Valentine’s Day, is a festival of love that “dates back to ancient Israel when the daughters of Jerusalem danced in the vineyards looking for a mate,” according to the Mishnah (Taanit 4:8). In Israel, Tu B’Av is a busy day, filled with summer weddings, musical performances, and romantic escapes. If you’re in America, however, the day may go unnoticed unless you’re checking the calendar for Jewish singles events.

But the 15th of Av (Tu B’Av begins on Aug. 18 at sundown) is far more than a summer love fest. In Jewish tradition, Tu B’Av is also a day of comfort, healing, and redemption.

According to rabbinic literature written in the period after the Second Temple was destroyed, despair was transformed into hope on Tu B’Av; the punishment of the generation of the desert was lifted and the years of wandering came to an end. Instead of digging their own graves as they had for 40 years in anticipation of their own deaths, the Israelites could finally hope to enter the Land of Israel, according to a well-known midrash (Eicha Rabba, Prologue 33).

In the aftermath of mindless tragedies in Orlando, Dallas, Tel Aviv, and Nice, I believe Tu B’Av can provide us with a sort of antidote for the pain and despair of this summer’s global violence, racial strife, and religious hatred that’s been fueled by fear-mongering political rhetoric. These days we crave comfort and consolation and not just romantic love (with due respect to the Beatles, “All You Need Is Love”).

Tu B’Av also sets the stage for Jewish unity and elimination of the barriers that divide us as a people. It was the day the tribes of Israel were permitted to marry outside their tribe and the tribe of Benjamin was no longer ostracized, as explained the Talmud (Taanit 30b). That’s a powerful message today, given the ongoing polarization in the Jewish community on matters such as the Diaspora and Israel.

The specter of the Iran deal lurks in the background, Israel remains the elephant in the room, and many LGBT Jews, Jews of color, and the intermarried couples still feel unwelcome in some circles.
Tu B’Av falls during the seven weeks of consolation between Tisha B’Av and Rosh Hashanah. What could be a more perfect time to begin the difficult process of healing and recovery from our grief and open wounds?

It’s up to each of us to reclaim Tu B’Av for our times. Whether it’s simply hugging a friend or relative, helping a neighbor, reaching out to the marginalized, or repairing a broken friendship, we can make this somewhat obscure holiday truly matter. As for me, I plan to tend the vegetables that my community’s interfaith garden is growing for a local food pantry.

As individuals and as a community, we have the power to transform Tu b’Av into a day of hope: Let’s not dig our own graves by stubbornly maintaining those divisive barriers. Instead, let’s reach across the aisle, talk with those with whom we disagree, and listen respectfully to their perspectives, whether it’s about Israel, American politics, Iran, or social and religious issues.

Imagine our voices rising together in harmony and singing“Nachamu Ami” (“Comfort, oh comfort, My People”) the beautiful verses from Isaiah 40, the haftarah portion for Shabbat Nachamu which immediately follows Tu b’Av. Imagine Jewish communities all across America singing these verses, using the melodies of Neshama Carlebach or the Israeli musician Aharon Razel. Finally, imagine chanting these words of comfort up until Rosh Hashanah for a year of hope, renewal, and redemption. Imagine, just imagine.

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